The Choice by Samantha King

ABSOLUTELY HAS SPOILERS AHEAD. It's okay, this one sucks.

This is one of the messiest books I have ever read. I don't understand how it got this way either because the basic premise (woman picks which child gets killed when a psycho breaks into her house) is good. Not very original but certainly a solid basis for a thriller. Unfortunately the book isn't actually about that.

Okay, so the best way to explain the plot of this book is to summarize each of the three parts separately because really, they're a different story:

Part 1-A woman struggles to live with the guilt she feels for choosing one of her children to die. Unfortunately she can't talk (because none of this is real) which means she doesn't actually have any interesting interactions with anyone. Instead we get internal monologuing interspersed with flashbacks.

Part 2-A woman wakes up from a coma. *gasp* None of part 1 was real! Nothing much happens here until we build up to the 'twist' that her daughter isn't actually dead because the weird choice scenario didn't happen like she imagined it in her coma dream (see what I mean about messy?). This twist is entirely obvious due to no one mentioning her daughter's death at all during this whole section.

Part 3-The main character is kidnapped by her husband who was the masked gunman (again, this is painfully obvious). A vague and badly paced showdown occurs. The woman lives with her two children, the end.

The biggest theme of this book is 'missed opportunities'. So part 1 has the main character be mute as an attempt at foreshadowing the fact that she's not really there/it's some weird coma dream. I as a reader don't care about this however because where is the premise offered by the blurb? I expected a book dealing with the main character's guilt at being forced to choose which child to die, an examination of why she chose that child and MOST IMPORTANTLY, other peoples' reactions to it! What would her husband say to her? Her surviving child? Her friends? All of this is completely lost for the sake of a twist which means that none of it matters anyway.

Similarly, by having the twist at the end of part 2 be so incredibly obvious, it unfortunately means that none of this section really matters either. None of her thoughts about her dead daughter are valid because her daughter isn't dead. So now we're two thirds of the way through the book and nothing so far matters.

It's really sad because there is some good stuff in this book. Not the pacing or plotting because that's always awful, but the actual style of writing isn't terrible. The characters as well are believable and had the potential to be compelling. I like the story of the romance between her and her husband, even if I hate the way it's revealed. And again, that initial seed of the idea could have made for a really good thriller. Instead, we just have the worst kind of mess.

Overall Rating: